Australian Hotels Association slams ‘sham’ Airbnb support campaign

AirBnb wants new rules in WA

The West Australian

VideoAirbnb is calling on WA to mirror changes in NSW, where the Government sets caps on how many nights a year holiday homes in regional areas can be let out

WA’s powerful hotels lobby has accused Airbnb of orchestrating a sham grassroots campaign in favour of its business model after an inquiry into short-stay accommodation was flooded with dozens of almost identical submissions.

With a State parliamentary committee investigating room-sharing services, the Australian Hotels Association of WA has drawn attention to more than 130 pro forma submissions lodged on the same day supporting Airbnb.

Almost 50 of them appear to come from the same addresses in North America such as Pasadena in the US, above, and Mississauga in Canada.

The AHA said the submissions were evidence of presenting an organised public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from the public.

Airbnb said WA postcodes had been incorrectly listed as North American addresses because of a glitch and it was not unusual for a company to help others advocate.

Airbnb accused the AHA of “rank hypocrisy”, saying the hotels lobby supported an anti-home sharing conference in New York called “Contrabnb”.

“The explicit purpose of this conference was to co-ordinate attacks against the everyday people, including West Australians, who rely on home sharing around the world,” Airbnb’s Brent Thomas said.

Since launching less than a decade ago, Airbnb has become a dominant provider, with more than 12,000 listings in WA.

But the US-based company is under attack from traditional hotel providers, who say Airbnb and companies like it are unregulated and not subject to the same standards.

AHA WA chief executive Bradley Woods said the many pre-filled submissions to the parliamentary inquiry from addresses overseas suggested Airbnb was using questionable tactics.

“It is even more concerning that a large percentage of these submissions have international addresses, with many cases of multiple submissions from the same addresses in Canada and Texas,” he said.